Women In Animation Summit To Be Livestreamed From Annecy

The organization Women in Animation (WIA), in partnership with French association Les Femmes S’animent (LFA), has announced that it will livestream its daylong summit taking place next Monday at the Annecy animation festival in France.

The full day of presentations and panel, centered around the theme of “Inclusion and Intersectionality,” will be broadcast on Facebook Live as well as streamed here:

The livestream will be available for the duration of the Annecy festival on the WIA Facebook page, and then will be privately accessible to WIA and LFA members after the festival ends on June 15th.

Here’s the line-up of talks and panelists:

Next Gen World View

Moderated by Julie Ann Crommett (vice president of multicultural audience engagement at the Walt Disney Studios and WIA Secretary) Hear the views of several Next Gen filmmakers on inclusion, intersectionality, and the near future when 75% of the workforce will be Next Gen.

The day will also include a keynote presentation by Julie Ann Crommett, who will give an overview of the concepts of diversity, inclusion, and belonging, as well as explore the business data and creative case. She will refresh last year’s unconscious bias highlights with data on how inclusion drives business results in our global marketplace and will explore ways to facilitate change.

Additionally, Melissa Cobb, Netflix’s vice president of kids and family, will moderate a lunch conversation with a select group of leaders and influencers to further discuss the topic of inclusion and intersectionality, focusing specifically on developing diverse talent in the industry.

It’s also interesting to note that many of the sponsors of this year’s event are large American studios. For what it’s worth, it’s the same studios that have been responsible for 99% of major American animated features in the last decade being directed (and nearly as many written) by men. I’m not sure if the irony is apparent to these companies, who are sponsoring an event dedicated to fixing a problem they created in the first place.